Epistemic arguments play a significant role in the foundations of market liberalism as exemplified, in particular, by the work of F. A. Hayek. Competition in free markets is claimed to be the most effective device both to utilize the knowledge dispersed throughout society as well as create new knowledge through innovation competition. The fast pace with which new economic opportunities are discovered and costs are reduced is considered proof of the benefits of free markets to the common good. However, with (...) its inherently unpredictable consequences, innovation competition is actually ambiguous in this respect. This feature raises questions over the stringency of market liberal pleas that oppose quests for redistribution and environmental concerns in an absolute fashion. (shrink)

Economic development and growth are driven by the emergence of new technologies, new products and services, new institutions, new policies, and so on. Important though it is, the emergence of novelty is not well understood. Epistemological and methodological problems make it a difficult research topic. They imply a ?bound of unknowledge? (Shackle) for economic theorizing wherever novelty occurs in economic life. To make progress, this paper takes stock of the problems. The methodological consequences for causal explanations and the modelling of (...) economics dynamics are discussed, and some possibilities for positively theorizing about novelty are outlined. (shrink)

Because of the intellectual attraction of the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution, its conccpts are often borrowed to conceptualized evolutionary change also in non-biological domains. However, a heuristic strategy like that is problematic. An attempt is therefore made to identify generic features of evolution which transcend domain-specific characteristics. Epistemological, conccptual, and methodological implications are discussed, and the ontological question is raised how non-biological evolutionary theories can be accommodated within the Darwinian world view of modern sciences.